I picked up an unusually shaped set of wind chimes, and the sound waves generated by my lifting them created a sentient being, hanging in mid-air in the garden section of Curtis Lowe’s, composed of the vapor wake interference of the perfectly woven tones. The entity glowed pinkish purple, was translucent, and vaguely humanoid in shape.

Its first words, matching the movements of changes in color I took for its mouth, but with sound coming from the chimes in my shaking hand, were, “Don’t put the chimes down!”

I froze and held the chimes a little farther away from me. The apparition smiled? My hands were shaking, and the chimes continued to vibrationally manifest an entity into existence from what was inert air before me, two feet from my face. Its mouth opened again. It said, “I’m glad you’re nervous and shaking. Keep moving the chimes. Don’t touch them. If you stop them ringing, I’ll die.”

My arm ached just at the thought of holding onto these chimes for more than a few minutes. I looked around for a place to hang the sentient chimes. The spirit’s voice quickly rung out again, through a composite voice of all the chimes at once, “Don’t hang the chimes. Carry me. I need you… father.”

I dramatically arched a single eyebrow. The right one. I said, “What are you, anyway?”

The chimes said, “I am a new creature that never existed before you picked up the set of chimes you’re holding. But I intuit that I can exist only in relatively still air. So the chimes are likely only strong enough for me to exist indoors. Otherwise, even a weak wind would break up the tiny changes in air pressure that compose my internal machinations. I would like to be named ‘Gene Dudley.’”

I said, “So you exist solely in the ringing sounds of wind chimes that can’t be in the wind?”

Gene Dudley’s ghostly head drooped toward the floor, and he said in his beautiful, unearthly voice, “Yes.”

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad being father to sentient wind chimes. Gene was pretty smart for just being around 20 seconds old. But my arm was shaking, and I am not a strong person. I didn’t consider, in those moments we had together, creating some type of automated chime shaker. I just felt the pain growing in my arm, like a porcupine baby in a womb. I said, “Wind chimes that can’t be in the wind, but can’t be quiet. Are you just trying to teach me a lesson?”

Gene Dudley said, “Look at the label on the chimes. What does it say? Where did I come from, father?”

I pulled the chimes closer to my face, careful not to touch any of the magical singing tubes. The label on the chimes, just above the barcode, read, “SKU76319 $179.99.”

I was like, “$179.99. No way.” Maybe if I had had a gift card. I set the protesting $180 Gene Dudley down gently, and snuffed his existence like a hemorrhoid pad putting out a lit match.